Southern hospitality

The holidays would not be the holidays without tamales. We celebrate with tomatillo green chile and chicken tamales. Home made, save the corn masa powder from a bag. 69 cents per 5 lb bag, branded in Spanish, but proudly grown in the USA.



And for those of us with Guatemalan tendencies, red chile and pork tamales wrapped in banana leaves. Exactly like how my imaginary Guatemalan grandma made them.



And an over-baked anise scented flan. I really gotta do something about that over-achieving oven.



Hannah likes chicken. Hannah already exhibits Central American affinities through her love of Dora the Explorer.

Booty tang

Hannah drove down to visit for the new year's. Her chariot announces her presence.



Uncle Davy's chariot announces... well, Uncle Davy is Uncle Davy.



Hannah likes the picnic table her uncle got her. This is the no adults allowed table. The clever product design filters out people with large asses.



I'm not even sure Hannah even recognizes anything Nemo. No clue why we're waiting 2 hours in line to ride the yellow submarines to see an animated clownfish in a movie she's never seen.



No Nemo yet. But at last we're sitting our fat asses down.



The It's a Small World ride will be closing for "upgrades" soon. Disney needs to make the boats more buoyant. And parts of the track have to be deeper and wider to allow for a wider turning radius. Such is the effect of our country's expanding waistline. Brought forth by our unnaturally monoculture corn based food supply. Itself a consequence of some well intentioned, but flawed farm subsidy policy dating back decades. Which have deepened our petroleum dependance because of corn's reliance on petroleum based fertilizers. So that we can feed our beef and tilapia, animals which are not biologically designed to process corn. And produce the multi-syllabic chemical food components that make up nearly every aisle of our grocery stores. To which we drive miles and miles back and forth inside our air conditioned 12 miles per gallon automobiles. But boy, sometimes one of those hostess cupcakes really hits the spot.

Overblown

Didn't I just clean the pool from the last wind storm? On the bright side, the microwave cart didn't get blown into the bottom of the pool like in years past.

Butt crack

Dear Santa, I've been a good boy this year. Please bring me skunks and squirrels and chipmunks and possums and ducks and geese and cows and sheep. No cats please. And I like the dog biscuits that smell like stinky ass.



Some killer swiss chard from the backyard. I may have been a bit aggressive with the chile peppers.



Mushroom pasta, and tuna bean salad. Just one fish this year. We'll ease into Italy's traditional feast of the seven fishes slowly.



Some rosemary lemon chickens. Christmas goose would have required a lot more planning and effort. This year's holiday theme is Sloth. So this year's Christmas dinner I pulled out of my ass in a couple of hours.



And my pumpkin pie cracked. I may have to dial down the temperature of the oven.

Winter trash

Windstorms blew by.
Gold fish still alive.
One day he will die,
When cat takes a dive.



Banana Elvis bread. I'm making this for the Ackley's. Inspired by Elvis's favorite fried peanut butter and banana sandwich, this is banana bread with reeses peanut butter cups crumbled in.



I especially like the inflatable baby Jesus.

What's n-ewe?

Beautiful weather for walkies with Preston. Let's explore what's new in the neighborhood. What's new to the neighborhood are sheep. I will ask them whether they plan to make organic pecorino cheese (or make a sacrifice to Satan.)



And one of the neighbors behind me has decided to gold leaf all the trim on their house. I think they're going for that lost city of Eldorado feel.



And the crazy lady around the corner that keeps buying trees and not planting them has unearthed her Xmas cactus. The Xmas cactus could have been there all year, and just exhumed by moving pots around. We shall never really know. I'm too scared to machete through the jungle maze to find the front door to ask her.



Peace on earth. Peace sign. Globe. Peace on earth. Get it? Now that's wit.



And stars and bowling balls as garden accessories. Because we can.

Manteca de cerdo

Pig butter. First day of winter means my ass needs more insulation. So we're cooking with lard!



Resulting in the world's most bestest ever tomatillo braised pork loin.



Other than clothing sizes, many many good things are marked with three X's.

Homecoming

Twenty years ago, I spent many wintry days looking out from those first floor windows, planning my snow fort and watching the fire engines drive by.



Since that time, our little blue collar neighborhood had been overrun by crack whores, and more recently, swarms of wealthy yuppies. Those damn yuppies brought along a National Register of Historic Places designation. And now I can't afford to live in the neighborhood I built my snow forts in.



But my kindergarten looks the same as I remembered- sans Dad's rusty poo brown Mercury Montego coupe (with tan half vinyl roof.)



And the playground around the block had been cleaned up and no longer smells of homeless pee.

Black and white

Nope. It's still cold in Iowa today.



The floor follows the Dr. Suess-ian school of design.



Pizza night. I made a lot. I lost count after 7. Tonight's secret ingredients are sunchokes and hen of the woods mushrooms.



Preston cookie. Smells nicer than the real one.

Hi Meg

Iowa is cold. So cold.



So very very cold.



But the burn your own meat place is HOT! HAWT! Thanks Meg!

Cat in box

I'm going to gift wrap this and give it to Preston.

Uh Oh

Lonely singleness on a cold damp Saturday night calls for comfort food. So we make the world's bestest ever Spaghetti O's (tm.) This took longer to make than opening up a can from Campbell's. But not much more. A jar of backyard tomato sauce. Some snausages. A bit of leftover vino, a few sprinkles of assorted spices, and a fling or two of parmesan cheese. 15 minutes or so. Loneliness continues much much longer.

Masturbating cow

So-so beef stroganoff tonight. Meh. I think I like the stroganoff they serve at the cafeterias better. Sometimes, crap food is better than home made.

Pie pie pie pie pie

Shaved fennel, scallion, and meyer lemon pizza. Everything sliced super thin with a drizzle of olive oil. An original Davy concoction. Is good. Is very good.



3 cheese pizza. With davy tomato sauce, and davy dough. At some point in my life there will be davy sheep and cows to make davy cheese. But Costco sheep and cows will have to do for now.



And a normal pepperoni version.



And another inspired Davy invention- sun dried tomatoes and garlic confit pizza. The green onions will get all wilt-y from residual heat from the pizza pie, tempering the sharpness of the green onions slightly. This one was really good. The garlic confit completely transformed in texture to be potato-like. How very interesting and delicious. I wonder how that happened?



Chocolate truffle tart with fuyu persimmons. Decent first attempt. The chocolate overwhelmed the persimmons, so next time, I'd use the more flavorful hachiya persimmons instead of fuyu. And I'd incorporate the persimmons in puree form into the chocolate truffle, perhaps whipping in more air for a less dense texture before setting in the chocolate pastry shell. And I need to track down some Dutched cocoa powder. The pastry could be better with dutched cocoa and more butter. Let's sleep on that.

Root root root for pie

Apple rhubarb streusel pie. I was expecting to be underwhelmed by this pie, and maybe even toss it out after a few bites. But Oh So Incredible Pie! What a happy surprise! I didn't think pies could be this delicate and sophisticated. Is this really rhubarb? Not too sweet, citrus flavor without the sharp acid bite, subtle aroma from the gooseberry glaze. Great contrast in texture between the rhubarb, gala apple chunks, the walnut streusel topping, and the flakey pastry crust. The walnuts in the streusel tie the buttery crust together with the earthy rhubarb. All in perfect harmony. And I have no clue what I did to create this, so I'm never going to be able to reproduce this.



There was a time not so long ago when I'd say, "Why the hell would I need pie weights?" "In this day and age, who the hell bakes pies and tarts regularly?" But here we are today. The beginnings of a chocolate truffle tart, and a set of ceramic pie weights.



Tonight is all about roots and tubers. I'm preparing horseradish root.



I wound up painstakingly peeling fingerling potatoes because I didn't want to get in the car to get normal sized yukon gold potatoes. I managed to not mangle my own digits. Sadly, my recent relationship with this peeler is one of my longer term relationships. Sigh.



The taters get cooked in milk with celeriac. The unpeeled celeriac was so hideously ugly that I didn't bother taking a "before" picture for fear of scaring babies and puppies.



A three burner night. I feel proud when it's a 3 or 4 burner night.



Glazed short ribs with mustard cream sauce and red wine reduction. Celeriac potato puree. Foods to warm your soul during chilly winter nights.